December 25th, 973
After defeating the otyughs in the trash dump, the party paused to rest and consider their options while standing ankle-deep in water that was best left undescribed.
What had previously been a crack in the far wall leading to another chamber had, sometime between sessions, been retconned by the DM into three twenty-foot garbage chutes descending from above at a steep angle. Judging by the stains, odors, and general lack of architectural dignity, they had clearly been serving their purpose for quite some time.
Peering cautiously upward, the heroes found themselves looking into a chamber occupied by six motionless skeletons and, on the far side of the room, a zombie orc of the same type previously encountered at Willowhollow. The creature stood beside a large bronze gong, striker in hand, displaying all the initiative and personality normally associated with zombies.
The implications were immediately obvious. If the party entered the chamber, the skeletons would attack, the zombie would strike the gong, and whatever inhabited the rest of the complex would suddenly become aware of their presence.
A lengthy tactical discussion followed.
Eventually the party settled upon what seemed an elegant solution. Two of the garbage chutes were blocked using debris and ice produced by that ongoing crime against thermodynamics known as Shape Water. Calder would cast Silence upon the gong, the zombie would be destroyed with missile fire, and the skeletons would obligingly charge down the remaining chute into a carefully prepared kill zone in the otyugh chamber below.
It was a fine plan.
Unfortunately, the enemy had not been invited to the briefing.
The zombie orc stubbornly survived the opening attacks and, rather than charging down the chute, the skeletons remained equally stubborn in their own chamber. Wolfgang was eventually forced to climb upward and physically drag two skeletons into the kill zone himself, a task he accomplished successfully but not without collecting several fresh sword wounds for his trouble.
Recognizing that subtlety had exhausted its usefulness, the party eventually abandoned the plan altogether and stormed the chamber. The remaining skeletons were quickly dispatched.
The zombie orc, however, was nowhere to be found. The gong bore numerous fresh dents where it had apparently been struck repeatedly before the zombie finally abandoned the effort and shambled off to sound the alarm by other means.
More concerning still, among several long poles apparently intended for pushing garbage down the chutes, the party found a message in Common scrawled on the wall at goblin height:
WELCOME.
KESH SAID YOU WOULD COME.
YOU TOOK LONGER THAN EXPECTED.
WE LEFT YOU SOME SKELETONS.
YOU ARE WELCOME.
Clearly, after returning home, Kesh had told his compatriots all about the party. Expecting pursuit, the defenders had prepared accordingly.
A short distance farther on, another message appeared:
YOU ARE VERY BAD AT SECRET INVESTIGATION.
YOU SEEK MIRA’THAR.
YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS.
THIS IS EMBARRASSING.
YOU ARE EMBARRASSING.
Not only had the party been expected, they now appeared to be the subject of active ridicule.
Moments later, arrows flashed from the darkness of a nearby intersection and Heka was slain.
The perpetrators proved to be a pair of goblin archers positioned at the far end of a long corridor. Their choice of battlefield was revealing. The corridor offered excellent fields of fire, little cover, and every advantage to the defenders. The goblins had clearly expected the party to charge directly into what amounted to a carefully prepared shooting gallery.
Instead, the heroes responded with what future military historians would doubtless describe as an unconventional approach.
Improvising shields from large blocks of magically created ice, they pushed their frozen barricades down the corridor while advancing behind them. The tactic proved remarkably effective. Deprived of clear targets and recognizing that they were badly outnumbered, the goblins abandoned their position and withdrew deeper into the complex.
It would not be the last time.
As the party eventually realized, the defenders had no interest in fighting a decisive battle. Their objective was delay. Every corridor, every ambush, every mocking message, and every retreating skirmish line served the same purpose: to consume the heroes’ time while something important continued elsewhere in the darkness.
More unnerving still were the sounds drifting through the stone corridors ahead of them. On several occasions the party heard distant voices, shuffling feet, and, most notably, the steady tink… tink… tink… of metal striking stone. Wolfgang eventually identified the sound as pitons being driven into the rock. Whatever response to their arrival was taking place, it was still underway.
The first chamber the party explored proved surprisingly revealing. Rather than a filthy goblin warren, they discovered a functioning military barracks complete with permanent housing, transient quarters, bathing facilities, and duty rosters. The realization slowly dawned that this was no collection of monsters hiding in caves. It was an organized installation.
And, for better or for worse, it was equally apparent that the installation was in the midst of a hurried evacuation. The room felt less abandoned than interrupted. Most of the occupants’ possessions were gone, but small traces remained: a blanket discarded on the floor, a goblin boot forgotten beneath a bunk, a lantern still hanging from its hook. Everywhere the party looked they found evidence that the inhabitants had departed quickly and recently.
One other item left behind was a note written in Goblin which the party painstakingly translated with the aid of a borrowed Common-Goblin dictionary,
Kesh,
Stop telling workers that the voices are talking about them.
They are already nervous.
— Sergeant Greshti
A second message, this one written in Common on the wall and clearly intended for the heroes, proved considerably more unsettling:
THE VOICES ALREADY KNOW YOUR NAMES.
Despite this, the party was exhausted, wounded, and increasingly aware that they were operating on the enemy’s timetable rather than their own. They therefore elected to take a short rest in the barracks.
And, consistent with their own plans, the defenders let them have it.
Back in the corridor, the party encountered yet another goblin message reading,
TRAP THIS WAY →
Accordingly, they approached the next door with understandable suspicion. By this point they had endured enough goblin trickery to regard every object in the complex as a potential murder attempt.
After several minutes spent debating whether the door might be trapped, magically warded, barricaded, alarmed, cursed, poisoned, or some combination thereof, the party ultimately adopted the traditional adventuring solution.
Hunkle hit it with a maul. Twice.
The door exploded into splinters.
A careful examination of the wreckage revealed no hidden mechanisms, no magical effects, and no trap of any kind.
For once, the door had merely been a door.
And what lay beyond it proved to be a supply and laundry room. Shelves stretching from floor to ceiling were once filled with blankets, uniforms, boots, work gloves, and other necessities required to support a permanent underground operation. Though much of the inventory had been removed during the apparent evacuation, enough remained to reveal an organization that paid attention to such luxuries as clean clothing, replacement equipment, and laundry duty.
The evacuation had clearly been hurried. An overturned crate lay scattered across the floor, freshly washed uniforms remained unsorted, and an inventory ledger sat abandoned upon a desk. One shelf bore a note from Quartermaster Grahk,
IF YOU TAKE THE LAST CLEAN BLANKET
WRITE IT DOWN
WE ARE NOT ANIMALS!
– GRAHK
Someone had later added:
YOUR MOM WAS AN ANIMAL LAST NIGHT!!
Meanwhile, another message directed specifically at Ant appeared upon the wall,
ANT MADE BARGAIN WITH ELDRITCH POWER.
ANT COULD HAVE MADE BARGAIN FOR MONEY.
STUPID ANT.
The party was forced to concede that, while the defenders were attempting to bury them beneath a mountain, they were also apparently making time for personalized insults. They were less than flattered.
The party next discovered what appeared to be a shrine. At its center stood a simple stone memorial inscribed with hundreds of names—orcish, goblin, and hobgoblin alike—surrounded by personal mementos left by the dead’s surviving friends and family. Ancient faded banners hanging on the wall behind the shrine depicted scenes from ancient Goghnol Mogh with two Orcish inscriptions underneath. Though the party could not read them at the time, Professor Harrow later translated them as,
REMEMBER WHO WE WERE
and
REMEMBER WHO WE LOST.
A large Orcish inscription on another wall proved too damaged and archaic to fully copy into the party’s notebooks, though Harrow was eventually able to recover fragments referencing children, memory, loss, and the kingdoms of men.
Most surprising was the room’s overall character. There were no threats, no promises of conquest, and no glorification of undeath. Instead the shrine seemed devoted almost entirely to grief, remembrance, and preserving the memories of subjugated civilizations.
As the party departed, they found themselves confronting two uncomfortable possibilities. The first was that the inhabitants of this outpost might not view themselves as villains at all, but rather as the descendants of conquered peoples attempting to preserve what remained of their histories. The second was that much of the complex itself—including the shrine—appeared distinctly Orcish in origin, suggesting that the goblins and hobgoblins had not built this place but had instead occupied and repurposed something far older.
A plaque near the door was written in Goblin, providing mute testimony in favor of the multi-racial hypothesis. It translated to, A PEOPLE WHO FORGET THEIR DEAD WILL SOON JOIN THEM.
The next chamber proved to be the installation’s mess hall and, like the barracks before it, it challenged many of the party’s assumptions. Long tables filled the room and the smell of mushroom stew still lingered in the air. One abandoned pot remained warm enough to suggest that the evacuation had occurred only hours earlier.
Evidence of that departure was everywhere. Two half-finished meals sat abandoned upon tables beside a lantern that had burned low. Scattered mugs, playing cards, and overturned chairs suggested that someone had been eating, working, and relaxing here when word arrived that it was time to leave.
More revealing still was the arrangement of the room itself. Goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs had clearly shared the facility as an organized community.
Cassyndra gathered a deck of cards left behind during the evacuation and used them for a divination. The resulting portent suggested several things. First, that despite the evacuation, valuable information and artifacts remained within the installation. Second, that the goblins and hobgoblins harassing the party did not actually wish to fight a decisive battle. Finally, Cassyndra received a vivid vision of Wolfgang transformed into something resembling a pincushion, riddled with arrows from every direction. The meaning seemed reasonably clear: the defenders preferred to avoid direct confrontation, but if pressed too aggressively they remained entirely willing—and capable—of making exceptions.
Encouraged by the second revelation, the party decided to attempt diplomacy.
Opening the doors to the mess hall cautiously, they called into the darkness and announced their desire to parley. After a brief pause, a goblin speaking broken Common responded from a distance, shielded by cover of darkness. What followed was an awkward negotiation between the party and an unseen commander somewhere deeper in the complex, with the goblin serving as translator.
Unfortunately, the discussion, although prolonged, established only two points.
First, the goblins were absolutely determined to misunderstand the party’s desire to parley as a desire to surrender.
Second, the only alternative arrangement they were willing to consider was one in which the heroes left the facility immediately and the goblins generously refrained from killing them.
Failing to reach a consensus on either point with the party, the defenders withdrew further into the darkness and the party proceeded onward into the facility’s kitchen.
A message written in Common at approximately goblin eye level greeted the party immediately upon entering:
DWARF FIGHT BETTER THAN HE COOK
THIS IS NOT COMPLIMENT
Wolfgang accepted this criticism with quiet seething. Even he, however, was forced to admit that the kitchen itself proved surprisingly impressive.
Rather than the chaos the party had expected, they found a meticulously organized workspace. Shelves lined the walls. Pots and pans had once hung from carefully labeled hooks. Knives, removed during the evacuation, had occupied racks beside chopping blocks worn smooth by years of use. Two large brick ovens dominated one side of the room while three enormous iron cauldrons hung above central fire pits. The largest could easily have fed a hundred creatures.
A review of the kitchen’s inventory ledger suggested that this was not merely theoretical. Though the latest entry’s ink remained damp, meal counts fluctuated dramatically from day to day. Sometimes the kitchen prepared food for twenty individuals. At other times it fed more than one hundred. The installation was clearly more than a simple garrison. Larger groups passed through here regularly.
The evacuation had interrupted preparations already underway. One table remained covered with partially chopped mushrooms while another held sacks of roots and vegetables awaiting processing. Dough still rested in a massive mixing bowl, drying slowly around the edges. A fresh loaf of bread sat abandoned upon a rack.
The smells lingering in the room were unexpectedly pleasant – fresh bread, roasting mushrooms, wood smoke, and something spicy that none of the party could identify.
Several chalkboards mounted upon the walls listed menus and inventory information. Today’s culinary offerings appeared to have consisted of mushroom porridge, mushroom stew, flatbread, and tea. The evening meal differed from the midday meal primarily in that it featured a different tea.
Toward the rear of the kitchen, the party discovered a storage chamber. Most of its contents had already been removed during the evacuation, but a handful of barrels remained behind. One in particular bore a label reading:
OTYUGH FEED
The lid had been secured with three separate locks. Scratching noises emerging from within suggested that whatever was being stored inside was still alive and still very angry. The party elected to leave them be.
More than anything else, however, the kitchen’s overwhelming normality left an impression upon the heroes. They had come expecting the lair of monsters. Instead they found a place where someone had worried about inventory shortages, meal schedules, and whether there would be enough bread for the evening shift.
It looked less like the headquarters of a sinister conspiracy and more like the kitchen of a military fort, mining camp, or adventurers’ guild.
The realization was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. The inhabitants of this outpost did not appear to think of themselves as monsters. They appeared to think of themselves as people.
Further along, the party came across two branches in the corridor. One led downhill deeper into the complex and the other led to what appeared to be a command center. Careful about being surprised from behind, the party left Gareth on watch at the slope while they explored the command center.
The most significant discoveries awaited the party in what appeared to be the installation’s command center.
A plaque upon the door read,
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
Someone had later amended the notice with a practical clarification,
KESH IS NEVER AUTHORIZED
Inside, the heroes found a room that had clearly served as the nerve center of the operation. Though much of its contents had been removed during the evacuation, enough remained to paint a troubling picture.
A large map of the Hollowmere region still hung upon one wall. The central section had been removed, but the surviving portions revealed an extensive network of tunnels known to the goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs. More surprisingly, the map also depicted a second network of tunnels associated with the Crown’s own excavations. Whatever conflict was unfolding beneath Hollowmere, it was clear that the goblins and hobgoblins had been studying the humans for some time.
Nearby slate boards had been hastily wiped clean. One, however, still bore the heading:
MIRA’THAR
Beneath it were several categories:
- Supply Deliveries
- Excavation Progress
- Crown Activity
- Personnel Assignments
Unfortunately, whatever information had once been recorded beneath those headings had been erased before the evacuation.
Elsewhere in the room, the party recovered several mostly burned reports in Orcish that Professor Harrow would later partially translate. The surviving fragments proved illuminating:
- Crown excavation progressing rapidly.
- Voices increasing in lower galleries.
- Black-marked chambers remain sealed.
- Two workers missing.
- Avoid lower passages until further notice.
Particularly concerning was a partially burned evacuation order which read,
- Immediate withdrawal authorized.
- Be advised Crown breakthrough confirmed.
- Avoid that location.
Equally intriguing were several references to an unidentified source within the Crown operation referred to as RAPTOR.
- … received from RAPTOR confirmed accurate.
- Crown schedules continue to match RAPTOR reports.
- Source confirms excavation delays.
The repeated references suggested that someone with access to Crown information had been feeding intelligence to the outpost.
The room also contained an incident board tracking day-to-day problems within the installation. Among the posted notices were reports of injured workers, increasing voice-related disturbances, overdue skeleton maintenance, a temperamental otyugh, and the recurring problem of Kesh being discovered in places where Kesh was apparently not supposed to be.
A small side office proved to be the commander’s quarters. Here the evacuation had been far more thorough. The safe stood open, the drawers empty, and nearly all useful documents had been removed. Only a nameplate remained behind:
Captain Tharok
Forward Operating Base Gresh
For all the defenders’ efforts, however, they had failed to erase the larger picture.
The outpost was not an isolated cave occupied by a few goblins and undead. It was part of a much larger organization with intelligence networks, logistics, military command structures, ongoing excavations, and a particular interest in a place called Mira’Thar. Most troubling of all, both the Crown and the goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs appeared to be searching for something under Hollowmere.
The next chamber proved to be one of the strangest in the entire installation.
A heavy iron-bound door stood slightly ajar. Mounted beside it was a plaque written in Goblin which the party translated as,
ANIMATED ASSET MAINTENANCE
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
The room beyond resembled neither a shrine nor a laboratory. Instead, it looked remarkably like a workshop.
Or perhaps a repair depot.
For the undead.
Workbenches lined the walls. Empty racks showed where tools had once hung. Shelves that had previously contained sorted bones had largely been emptied during the evacuation. Several skeletons lay disassembled upon tables, their components neatly arranged as though awaiting routine maintenance.
The room smelled faintly of preservative oils, old leather, dust, and dry bone. Much to the party’s surprise, it smelled considerably better than the otyugh chamber.
A large chalkboard dominated one wall. Though written in Orcish, Professor Harrow later translated portions of the work schedule:
SKELETON 12
Missing arm
SKELETON 27
Replace rib cage
SKELETON 4
Stop wandering into kitchen
Nearby stood several partially animated skeletons, each bearing a numbered identification tag.
- SKELETON 12
- SKELETON 27
- SKELETON 4
The implication was difficult to miss. The undead here were not treated as soldiers, servants, or even individuals.
They were equipment.
One corner of the room contained a larger maintenance station clearly intended for more substantial undead. Chains hung from reinforced supports while oversized tools lay scattered nearby. A ledger left open upon a desk contained additional entries later translated by Professor Harrow:
ORC UNIT 3
Jaw repaired
ORC UNIT 7
Assigned to recovery detail
No names appeared anywhere.
Only unit numbers.
Perhaps the most unsettling discovery awaited upon a nearby shelf. There the party found dozens of carefully catalogued skulls, each bearing a small tag. Professor Harrow was later able to translate a few,
- Crushed during collapse.
- Excavation accident.
- Recovered from East Gallery.
- Awaiting reassignment.
The dead were not being commemorated. Nor were they being discarded. They were being archived, catalogued, managed, and ultimately recycled into future undead laborers.
Additional notes hinted at larger mysteries still hidden within Mira’Thar. One warning, in Orcish and translated by Professor Harrow, drew particular attention,
Do not animate recovered remains from restricted sectors.
No explanation accompanied the instruction.
A final sign, in Goblin, hung above the primary workbench,
DO NOT LEAN ON SKELETONS
THEY ARE WORKING
Meanwhile, Wolfgang discovered an abandoned flask containing a foul-smelling liquid and immediately claimed it for himself, demonstrating once again that while the party had learned many things during their expedition, caution regarding mysterious substances was not among them.
The party’s final major discovery within the outpost was the quartermaster’s office and supply stores.
Unlike the military atmosphere of the barracks and command center, this room felt almost bureaucratic. A sturdy desk sat amid shelves, filing cabinets, abandoned crates, and an unlocked strongbox whose contents had been hastily removed during the evacuation.
The desk itself remained buried beneath paperwork. Inventory ledgers, supply manifests, equipment requests, and complaint forms covered every available surface. One particularly impressive stack bore the label:
THINGS KESH HAS STOLEN
The file was remarkably thick.
More importantly, the records revealed the true scale of the operation. References appeared throughout the ledgers to Excavation Site 3, Excavation Site 7, Southern Outpost, Eastern Galleries, and numerous other locations. The realization slowly dawned that the outpost beneath Hollowmere was not an isolated base but merely one node within a much larger network.
The evacuation had been hasty enough that several interesting items remained behind. The party recovered a fuel-less Orcish lantern, an Orcish surveyor’s kit, and two examples of exceptionally well-crafted mining tools.
Historical artifacts had likewise been overlooked in the rush to depart. Among them were a broken Orcish officer’s badge, a clay census tablet, and a child’s learning slate, all later identified by Professor Harrow as dating to the years before the Righteous War.
Those discoveries proved especially significant. While the badge hinted at forgotten conflicts, the census records and school exercise revealed something more humanizing – evidence of ordinary life in ancient Goghnol Mogh.
Additional documents raised still more questions. One supply request read,
- Additional undead requested.
- Labor requirements increasing.
By the time the party finished examining everything, one conclusion was unavoidable. Whatever was being done beneath Hollowmere, it was far larger, better organized, and better supplied than any of them had suspected.
Their exploration of the upper level complete, the party returned to the junction where Gareth had remained on watch over the unexplored passage.
His vigil had passed uneventfully, but he frowned as the others approached.
“The longer I sat here,” he explained, “the more I noticed an odd smell.”
Once he mentioned it, the others noticed it as well – something sharp and volatile lingered in the air.
Oil.
The party followed the scent down the passage Gareth had been guarding and soon discovered its source. The entire forty-foot downslope beyond the junction had been coated with a thick layer of slippery, highly flammable oil.
The defenders, it seemed, had anticipated pursuit.
Standing well back, the party elected to test their theory with a lit torch.
The result was immediate.
FWOOP.
A sheet of flame raced down the corridor, consuming the oil in seconds before vanishing almost as quickly as it had appeared. Acrid smoke billowed upward through the passage.
From somewhere beyond the darkness came a chorus of startled goblin voices and what sounded suspiciously like several creatures expressing profound disappointment that their trap had just been discovered.
A brief tactical discussion followed which ended once someone remembered the barrel in the cold-storage room labeled OTYUGH FEED.
Several minutes later the party returned, rolling the barrel ahead of them.
Whatever had been intended as food for the otyughs had remained securely locked away behind three separate padlocks for a reason. Whatever that reason was, the heroes were determined that the goblins should experience it. They positioned the barrel at the top of the slope and gave it a shove. The container bounced, accelerated, and disappeared into the darkness below.
A moment later came the satisfying crash of splintering wood. Then scratching, squealing, and angry shouting in Goblin.
Then what sounded very much like a brief but energetic battle between goblins and several creatures that had not appreciated being stored inside a barrel.
The party listened with considerable satisfaction. For once, someone else was having a worse day than they were.
At this point, Cassyndra chose to share the troubling visions that had been haunting her for some time.
In dream after dream, she had witnessed a group of adventurers bearing an uncanny resemblance to the party confronted with a choice between rival factions. In every vision, the adventurers unknowingly chose the wrong side. Though the details varied, the outcome never did. Death, destruction, and widespread suffering followed.
Whether these visions represented alternate realities, forgotten events, or possible futures remained unclear with the fates, as usual, declining to elaborate further.
The revelation gave the party pause.
They had spent the day uncovering evidence that the goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs occupying the installation were far more organized—and perhaps far more sympathetic—than they had previously believed. The shrine in particular had raised uncomfortable questions regarding who exactly the villains of this story might be.
Unfortunately, the defenders had spent the same day dumping skeletons on them, shooting arrows at them, and systematically insulting them.
After a period of discussion, the party concluded that whatever the visions might have been saying about alliances, it was probably not suggesting they join with the goblins busy insulting and shooting arrows at them.
With that matter settled, they advanced down the corridor and, at the base of the slope, discovered the source of the harassment that had dogged them throughout the day. Hidden within alcoves and prepared fighting positions waited a disciplined rear-guard force consisting of seven goblin soldiers, a hobgoblin commander, and a goblin hexer.
The battle that followed proved one of the most dangerous of the expedition.
The defenders fought skillfully from prepared positions while the party, already worn down by a day of exploration, traps, and skirmishes, found themselves repeatedly on the edge of disaster. Several times it appeared the goblins might actually succeed in stopping the pursuit.
In the end, however, the heroes prevailed.
One by one the defenders fell until only two goblin soldiers and the hexer remained. One of the goblins had been rendered unconscious by Cassyndra’s magic, while the surviving soldier attempted to drag his companion to safety as the hexer frantically signaled that they were retreating and wished the party not to follow.
By that point, the heroes’ patience had been exhausted. The survivors were cut down, save for the unconscious goblin, who was taken prisoner for later questioning.
While collecting ears for bounty purposes, the party made an unexpected discovery. Unlike the goblins they had encountered while escorting the caravan to Manchester, these warriors were uniformly equipped. Their armor followed common patterns. Their shields bore identical markings. Their weapons were of consistent manufacture and quality.
Gone was the familiar “goblin chic” aesthetic wherein every warrior wore whatever scraps of clothing could be acquired and fought with whatever rusty implement happened to be available.
These goblins had uniforms.
They had insignia.
They belonged to something.
A closer examination of the fallen revealed matching goblin unit markings identifying them as members of the 1st Company, 3rd Fist, 2nd Claw.
The significance of the discovery was difficult to overstate. Until now, the party had largely been dealing with work crews, laborers, scavengers, and ad hoc warbands. The force that had harried them throughout the outpost was something different.
They had been organized, trained, equipped, and then ordered to act as a rear guard, a mission they had taken up with intelligence, professionalism, and even a bit of swaggering self-confident humor.
Someone, quite without anyone noticing, had built themselves an army.
Somehow finding the energy to continue, the party pressed onward and before long they encountered another trapped downsloping corridor.
This trap, however, was considerably less subtle than the previous one.
Like many of the tunnels in the complex, the passage was 10 feet high. Unlike the others, however, the upper third of the corridor had been packed with rubble and loose stone held in place by heavy netting secured to the walls with dozens of pitons.
Wolfgang immediately recognized the source of the distant hammering they had been hearing throughout the day. Not only had the defenders been evacuating, they had been building as well.
The purpose of the trap was obvious. Anyone advancing down the corridor would sooner rather than later find themselves buried beneath several tons of rock.
The goblins waiting beyond the trap proved remarkably unconcerned about concealing this fact, their voices drifting up from the darkness below.
- “You adventurers like shiny gold?”
- “Many shinies down here!”
- “You come and take!”
The invitations failed to inspire confidence.
As the party cautiously examined the corridor in search of some means of bypassing the obstacle, several realizations struck them almost simultaneously.
There was magic rushing up from the darkness below.
A spell.
A familiar spell.
They had seen it back in the Orcish waterworks during their battle with Argent Company.
It was a Fireball.
The heroes threw themselves to the ground.
A heartbeat later the spell detonated, fortunately midway down the slope rather than amongst them.
Unfortunately for the tunnel, it exploded exactly where it needed to.
Flame raced through the passage. The netting ignited instantly. The supporting ropes burned away.
The rubble began to fall.
Then the hidden barrels of gunpowder exploded.
The resulting detonation shook the entire complex. Stone, dust, and debris thundered down the corridor as the carefully prepared demolition collapsed the passage in a single catastrophic cascade.
When the noise finally subsided and the dust began to settle, the party cautiously approached the ruin but there was no need for further investigation. Forty or fifty feet of collapsed stone now filled the corridor from floor to ceiling and whatever lay beyond the passage was unreachable.
The evacuation was complete.
The defenders had escaped.
And the heroes had arrived just a little too late.
Recognizing that there would be no pursuing anyone through fifty feet of solid rock, the party reluctantly accepted that their exploration of the outpost had come to an end. They therefore spent the next several hours retracing their steps through the installation, gathering every artifact, document, map fragment, and scrap of writing they could reasonably carry.
The command center, quartermaster’s office, shrine, and workshops were all revisited. Ledgers were collected. Ancient Orcish artifacts that the defenders had overlooked during their hurried withdrawal were carefully secured. From the Shrine of Remembrance, the party recovered the weathered banners depicting scenes from ancient Goghnol Mogh, reasoning that Professor Harrow would likely appreciate both their historical significance and the opportunity to learn what they actually depicted.
By the time the collection effort was complete, the heroes found themselves burdened with a small mountain of records and relics whose value was not yet clear but whose importance certainly seemed considerable.
Only then did they begin the long journey back through the tunnels.
The return trip proved considerably less eventful than the descent. The otyughs remained dead, the skeletons remained dismantled, and no further goblins appeared to contest their departure. Whatever forces had occupied the installation had withdrawn completely.
As the party emerged once more into the fresh air above Hollowmere, they carried with them more questions than answers.
- What was Mira’Thar?
- What lay beyond the collapsed tunnel?
- Who was “RAPTOR”?
- Why had the voices been increasing in the lower galleries?
For the moment, however, there were more immediate concerns. The heroes were exhausted, filthy, and injured. Professor Harrow could wait until morning.
A hot meal, a bath, and a proper night’s sleep could not.